I'm pretty ignorant about gluten. Of course, there's plenty about "gluten-free rye" on the internet. But as you will know, it's not really rye bread at all, just 'rye' bread: ie. something that's kind of bready in texture, I suppose, and perhaps vaguely rye-like in taste, but with no rye in it whatsoever.
However, my knowledge of my ignorance itself serves to leave a big question in my mind: I don't know what it is about rye that makes it have such a moderating effect on my blood-sugar.
When I've mentioned this effect to doctors or diabetic experts, they're simply uninterested: they don't take what I'm telling them seriously. Neither do they seem remotely interested in the control I demonstrably manage to achieve. Without fail, I now get HbA1c results of around 5; and I hardly ever get a serious hypo. (Obviously, I can be distracted, or simply be careless, or unwittingly make a mistake.) But the only remark I've ever got from a diabetologist is of this character: "Ooh! That's a bit low." (That's just one of the remarks that sticks in my mind.)
Doubtless they get loads of patients asking them all kinds of questions, and naturally they don't have a lot of time to talk about these things, and doubtless many patient's questions are daft anyway. And moreover, very possibly the specialists themselves are ignorant about some of the issues they're asked about. So they just try to humour the patient and change the subject.
I know it can't just be gluten itself that produces the very marked effect that I've noticed. (As I've mentioned, my nonagenarian mother also noticed it.) I know that because other bread, such as white (or even wholemeal) wheat bread, certainly does not produce anything like the same effect. (Spelt bread seems to have a similar effect to rye, but not quite so marked.) Do you have any idea about what it might be? Or do you know of any medical or dietary expert you could ask? Because possibly, there may be some kind of gluten-free flour which might help you. Or have you tried them all anyway?
Regarding getting the blood-sample, I hope you don't use those blasted spring-loaded gadgets. They're completely unnecessary. I just jab myself, very gently, with the bare lancet. And unless I'm careless or in a hurry, I barely even feel it. (The lancets are exquisitely sharp, of course.) But surely now, by telling you that, I'm trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs.
Overnight hypos were a major problem for me in the past. But in time, I duly realised that one could so engineer the timing for taking insulin that the effects run out at bedtime. For me, they run out at 12.00pm. So at 11.00pm, so long as I haven't eaten anything during the mid- to late-evening that's slowly digested, then I know that my blood-sugar will fall by a further 2mmol/l precisely. (Naturally, I need to take a little long-acting insulin to ensure that it doesn't rise too much overnight; but with care, that's perfectly safe.) If my blood-sugar is 4mmol/l at 11.00pm, then I eat one half-slice of the co-op's wholemeal bread - it's carbohydrate value is always exactly the same: it raises my blood-sugar by 2mmol/l. (Blimey, it's so much easier to say this stuff rather than write it!)
What staggers me is that I had to work that out for myself. It's just so obvious to me now that one doesn't want any significant amount of alien insulin in one's system when one is asleep. Why don't the blasted experts recognise that and ensure that it's standard advice for all diabetics?
Having said all that, I recognise that continuous blood-sugar monitoring might be ideal for you, if the technology is up to it yet. (However, I suspect that may be a pretty big 'if' as yet.) Previously, I simply failed to realise that not all type 1 diabetics are simply type 1 diabetics without other problems thrown in. I'm sorry I didn't think about the mere possibility of that kind of complication before.
I know I'm arrogant, and I normally don't have too much of a problem with it. I once heard an army man talking about arrogance: sometimes you have to be not just arrogant, but BLOODY arrogant, or you will not defeat the enemy. (You're not the enemy, I hasten to add.) But hubris is another matter.